


The Belonging You Seek

by satonawall



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Teenagers, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-23
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-05-15 19:13:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 18,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5796487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/satonawall/pseuds/satonawall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rey really needs this summer job. Finn really wants this summer job. Café-owner Ms Organa is late, and Poe offers them both chocolate-chip cookies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Job Interview

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't really going to be a proper chaptered fic as much as a collection of hopefully-mostly-chronological drabbles, posted this way instead of as a series so as to not clutter my 'My Works' page. It's also incidentally my first ever Star Wars fic, so, ehm, be gentle and/or constructive?
> 
> **Warnings** : v. heavily implied if not blatantly stated child abuse (mostly emotional, with added racist overtones for Finn and starvation for Rey) by both of their foster parents (I’m so sorry, this thing is mostly going to be about the poor bbs finding love, family and human connection)

Rey tightened her ponytail, squared her shoulders and assumed her sweetest smile before pushing the door open.  
  
The café smelled of freshly baked bread and sugar, and she willed her stomach not to make a sound. There was no one at the counter, and she couldn’t see a bell to ring, so she just stood by the cashpoint, trying to not to look at the display case.

She really should have thought about this beforehand and saved something from dinner so that she wouldn’t have to come to the interview hungry, she chided herself. She should have thought of that.

The door behind the counter swung, and she had just the time to put on the sweet smile again before a boy, a little older than herself and dressed up in a stained and floury apron, appeared in front of her with a smile that looked oddly effortless.

“Hello, and welcome to The Resistance Café, sorry you had to wait. Can I get you something?”

“It’s okay,” Rey said. “I’m here to meet Ms Organa, we spoke on the phone…?”

“Okay.” The boy frowned a little, rubbing his hand (floury as well, Rey noted) against the apron. “She’s not here right now, and she didn’t say anything to me.” His frown melted into a smile that Rey had difficulty believing was genuine but seemed to be so anyway. “You know what, why don’t you take a seat, I’ll go and call her to ask about that. Be back in a second.”

Rey smiled at him exactly for the time it took for her to turn around and for him to disappear into the back again, and then she could not hold in the apprehension any longer.

She needed this job. Mr Plutt would probably need her to work a little, despite the investigation into his company making him wary enough to tell her to find a different job, but a little work would mean a little food, and in the summer she couldn’t even supplement that by opportunely timed visits to classmates she knew would love to copy her homework and whose parents would ask her to stay for dinner.

She startled as something clashed against the table, and definitely looked too spooked as she looked up at the boy who’d appeared out of thin air and was standing next to her. Belatedly, her eyes fell on the thing in front of her. It was a glass of apple juice.

“Ms Organa’s running a little late,” he said apologetically and set down a biscuit (a large, chewy-looking chocolate chip cookie) next to it. “She said- You probably don’t care about that. Anyway, she’s sorry she’s keeping you waiting, and she asked me to make amends. She should be here in half an hour. Can you wait that long?”

If he kept offering her food, she could wait until the café closed.

“Yeah,” she said, smiling up at him. It came surprisingly easily. “Of course, no problem.”

“I’m Poe,” the boy said, flashing her a smile as he moved behind the counter again. “You must be one of the job interviewees.”

Rey nodded. “I’m Rey.”

“Nice to meet you.” Poe fetched a dishtowel from somewhere behind the counter and began to wipe at a stain Rey didn’t remember seeing. “I promise Ms Organa’s usually better about- well, everything when it comes to her employees. She’s really cool.”

Hesitantly, Rey took the cookie in front of her and took a small bite. She didn’t tell Poe, but as far as she was concerned, Ms Organa had already made a good first impression on her, and they hadn’t even met.

Taking another bite, she wondered if employees got free food sometime.

God, she really needed this job.

—

Finn rehearsed the words in his head, his mental voice repeating them with Mr Hux’s accent and intonation.

Hello, Ms Organa. Thank you for meeting me. I am very glad to have this chance to prove to you that I can be useful and a productive member of society.

He definitely wasn’t going to say that. Mr Hux might have been an upstanding, tax-paying citizen, but he was not a people person.

Hello, Ms Organa, I am Finn. I would love to have this job, I have very good people skills and I am a hard worker.

God, he really hoped he’d get this job. He was pretty sure Ms Phasma would pay him to do garden stuff for him if he struck out here as he had everywhere else so far, but Mr Hux would mutter things about dependency on charity and burden to society and to your friends and neighbours, with that voice that he always used just for Finn, and Finn just- It’d be nice if he didn’t, was all. Plus, if he had a job elsewhere, he wouldn’t be under Ms Phasma’s unnervingly watchful eye all summer.

The café was mostly empty when he walked in, save for a boy with a wide smile and tousled hair behind the counter talking with his hands to a girl at one of the tables who looked like she was all sharp angles. The boy had an apron on, and he was behind the counter, so he probably worked there, and the girl was slowly working her way through a biscuit, so she was probably a customer. Finn was pretty sure Mr Hux would have taken one look at the boy and told Finn they were not going to eat there, but somehow, Finn breathed a little easier just at the sight of him.

“Hello,” he said, standing straight like Mr Hux had drilled into him, trying to find comfort in the fact that he knew his trousers were properly up and he had just showered before he left. “I’m looking for Ms Organa?”

The girl turned around at the sound of the name, looking him up and down in a way that was unnerving but not- Not like when Mr Hux did it, always ready to point at least something that Finn should correct about himself.

The boy let out a laugh and made a motion towards the general direction of the girl.

“You must be Finn,” he said. “I’m Poe. Ms Organa’s running late, she’s really sorry and hopes you don’t mind waiting a moment? It should be just a few minutes now.”

Finn smiled at him. He’d _definitely_ prefer working here to weeding Ms Phasma’s flower benches.

“It’s fine,” he said.

Poe guided him to the same table as the girl, disappeared for a second and came back with a glass of juice and a biscuit, probably the same thing the girl had had, before disappearing again, this time into the backroom.

She was probably his competition for the job, Finn realised with a sinking heart. He did not fare well in comparisons, at least according to Mr Hux, and anyway, the girl looked like her eyes could cut glass.

He had no idea how that would be an asset in a bakery, but it seemed worrying anyway.

“Hi,” he said as the girl pushed the last of her cookie into her mouth. “I’m Finn.”

The girl chewed slowly and swallowed. “I know.”

“Oh.” Finn ducked his head. “Of course, Poe just said-“

“I’m Rey.” The words were said fast, and the girl – Rey – was looking at the table instead of at him, fixing her ponytail at the same time. She was nervous, too, Finn realised. “I- I think we’re applying for the same job.”

Finn offered her a small smile. “Probably.”

He cut a piece from the biscuit and pushed it into his mouth. Rey’s eyes followed, and suddenly it felt really awkward to be eating when she had already finished.

“Do you want to split this?” he asked, waving the rest of the biscuit in the air before he realised how weird that looked. “I mean, I just had lunch before I left, I don’t-“ Mr Hux wouldn’t approve of him indulging his sweet tooth anyway, he was always saying how Finn had to develop more self-control about his eating. “I don’t usually eat much sugar anyway.”

Rey blinked, and for a very scary second, Finn thought she might cry.

“Are you really offering?”

“Sure.” He snapped the biscuit in half, offering her the larger one. “If you want it.”

Rey snatched the biscuit, lightning-fast, and then froze. When she smiled, it was both guarded and bright, and definitely so distracting that Finn had no idea where her half of the biscuit was gone; when he looked down, she wasn’t holding it, and he was sure she hadn’t eaten it, he’d been… Preoccupied with her mouth.

“Thank you,” she said, with a smaller smile.

Finn smiled back. Poe came out of the backroom, making a joke about baking, and just as they were laughing, a middle-aged woman ran into the shop with her arms full of papers, somehow managing to look both authoritative and apologetic as she dumped her papers on a nearby table and took a seat opposite Finn and Rey, telling them she was Leia Organa and she was really sorry about the delay.

He bit his cheek as Ms Organa began to look over his CV.

He’d just really love to come to this place every day until school started again.

—

“So,” Rey said as she closed the café door after them, “congratulations, I guess.”

Finn smiled at her; it was bewilderingly sweet-looking, just like Poe’s, except it tied Rey’s stomach in an additional knot she was fairly sure would not be undone by going home and eating the three fourths of a portion she was quite sure Mr Plutt would grant her for her accomplishments that day.

The half a cookie Finn had given her might do the trick, but it might also just create some new knots.

“You, too.” His shoulder brushed against hers. “I’m sure it’s going to be a good summer.”

Rey swallowed, thinking about the pay (she hadn’t quite done the maths, but she was fairly sure one day of work would pay for more than two full meals), the benefits (they’d get a free sandwich for every four hours of work, and Poe had butted in to say Ms Organa always sent him home with the deformed pastries that weren’t pretty enough to sell, which was uncertain but filled Rey with vague hope anyway) and the people (Ms Organa and Poe both seemed nicer than Mr Plutt and his employees, and Finn had given him half a biscuit and been nice to her even though they had been competitors and had complimented her about her job experience even though it would have been beneficial for him to have it played down and… he was just nice, too, without any reason to, it was baffling) and smiled. It didn’t require any effort.

“Yeah,” she said. “Me too.”


	2. The First Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few things that I probably should have said at the beginning of the first chapter, but better late than never.
> 
> 1) This is going to be a ridiculously slow-burn fic. Like, I've plotted out the first fifteen chapters and they've held hands like once. Bear with me, it will happen.
> 
> 2) More as a disclaimer for later, I do do some kind of research on how things like high school and child protective services actually function, but like, this is a coffee shop AU I am writing bc my brain wouldn't stop coming up with heart-wrenching and/or cute stuff, so. I am much more concerned about getting the emotional beats of it right than about whether something is strictly speaking possible in real life. If something in the realm of bureaucracy is unrealistic, I will probably claim that they used the Force.

“Just like that.” Poe grinned at her. “And then you put a regular spoon and one of the black sugar packets on the saucer, but you don’t actually have to remember that, there’s a diagram taped to the machine on your left side.”

Rey smiled. It was kind of hard not to; Poe’s smile was ridiculously contagious, and he’d taken to flashing it around Rey a lot. (That, or then he was just a generally smiley person; Rey suspected that was more likely.)

“Not that many people actually ask for anything but regular coffee,” Poe said as he put the empty espresso cup he’d used in his demonstration in its place. “But you have to know it anyway. Good job.”

He reached out to quickly squeeze Rey’s shoulder. He’d done it a couple of times before when he’d complimented Rey on a job well done. It was weird – no one had ever done that to her before – but not bad weird. She didn’t want him to stop.

Moving a little to the side, Rey examined the diagram, trying to commit it to memory. She needed this job, she wasn’t going to lose it because she used the latte spoon for the espresso cup. Her instincts were telling her Poe probably wouldn’t mind, but Poe wasn’t her boss even if he was apparently practically the second-in-command of the shop during the summer.

“Right.” Poe pulled out his phone and glanced at it. “We-“

A customer wandered in and Poe’s attention shifted that way.

“Good morning,” he said, and Rey just about managed to catch up to him on ‘morning’ so that it sounded like they’d both instinctually said it.

There had been customers in and out occasionally throughout the morning, so Rey was already fairly practiced in acting like it she didn’t feel awkward and out of place behind the counter. Poe hadn’t shown her how to use the till yet, so she was practically useless there anyway, and besides, most of the customers seemed to be regulars who knew Poe and asked after his parents’ health and about how Ms Organa’s husband’s fishing trip was going, so it was even more awkward when they turned their attention to Rey and pointed out they had never seen her before.

This one – a Mr Antilles, apparently, or so Poe called him – was just picking up his order for breakfast rolls and left quickly.

“So,” Poe turned his full attention back to Rey, “like I was saying, Finn’s supposed to be here in about ten minutes, and I was thinking I’d show you two how the till works at the same time. Wanna have a break now?”

Rey’s stomach – mercifully quiet, but not quite content – reminded her that a break meant food.

“Sure,” she said and flashed a smile.

Poe had shown her how the sandwich grill worked earlier, and she was just taking out the second sandwich when the door opened again. Mentally preparing to smile at a customer while her traitorous body was yearning for the food, she turned around.

God, she had never been so happy to see Finn.

That was mean. The first and so far only time she’d seen Finn, she’d been nervous about losing the job to him and probably hadn’t been the nicest she could be. Besides, there he stood, in a grey t-shirt that fit him perfectly, smiling like he was genuinely pleased to come spend all his afternoon and evening learning the ins and outs of a café with Poe and Rey.

She was happy to see him, no extenuating circumstances needed.

“Hey, Finn,” she mumbled, her gaze moving back to the sandwiches.

“Hey, Rey, hi, Poe.”

“We were just going to take a break,” Poe told him. “You can both go take a seat over there, I’ll just grab an apron for you, Finn, be right back.”

With a sandwich in each hand, Rey made her way to the table at the back Poe had pointed them to, Finn trailing after her.

“So,” Finn said as they were sat down and Rey had taken the first bite of her sandwich, chewing slowly so that she’d remember not to eat it too quickly, “how has your first day here been?”

“Good.” She swallowed. It was a little difficult to focus on anything but the food. “It’s been fun.”

She took another bite of her sandwich. “Has your summer started off well?”

Finn smiled; it looked surprised, and Rey wondered if she’d really come off impolite. She hadn’t meant to. “Yes, it has.”

Poe chose precisely that moment to return from the back room, waving an apron and throwing it in Finn’s direction. Finn caught it, arms reaching out quickly; it was really quite impressive.

“Do you want coffee?” Poe asked, still by the counter. “Either of you? Or hot chocolate? You can have as much as you want of either, whenever you’re working.”

Rey looked outside onto the sunny street. It was slightly cooler inside, but it definitely wasn’t a day for hot chocolate or coffee.

“No thanks.”

“Me neither,” Finn said. “Thank you.”

Poe said something, and when he reached the table, it was with three large glasses of water that he placed in front of them. Rey reached for hers; she hadn’t realised how thirsty she was.

“Thank you,” she said, practically in unison with Finn.

Poe made a vague gesture with his hand, pushed his hair away from his eyes and turned to Finn.

“So, you’re Finn. Didn’t really get the chance to talk to you the last time we met.”

Finn sat up straighter, or at least tried; he’d already had great posture. “It was kind of quick.”

“Do you live around here? Ms Organa thought we might go to the same high school, but I don’t remember your face so I couldn’t say for sure.”

Rey could see Finn’s Adam’s apple bob. “I go to First Order Academy.”

“Not the same, then.” Poe smiled at him. “I go to D’Qar. I’ve been to First Order, though, they organised the district track championships this year.”

“You run?” Rey asked. Poe had been excited to hear she was set to come to D’Qar as well; Jakku only went as high as junior high.

“Team captain.” Poe laughed. “Which means that in September, I will come after you to recruit you.”

Rey took a bite of her sandwich. She got plenty enough exercise cycling to places, and it didn’t seem like a good idea. Then again, clubs were a good way to get to know people who might invite her over sometimes.

“You can try.”

“And I will.” Poe turned to Finn. “How about you? Any chance I might see you as competition some day?”

Finn bit his lip. “I jog sometimes?”

“There’s a start.” The door opened again, and Poe jumped up, his customer service smile already on. “I’ll be back.”

Their gazes followed him as he made his way to the counter and began answering questions about cakes and then turned to look at each other.

Finn looked a little overwhelmed, and Rey really wanted to reassure him.

“It’s really been fun,” she said quietly. “And Poe’s really nice, too.”

She got a smile.

“So you’re already in high school?”

Finn nodded. “Just finished my freshman year.”

Rey bit her lip.

“How old are you? I mean, I was held back a year, we might actually be the same age.”

Finn looked away and sat up straighter again. She didn’t know why seeing it made her stomach lurch unpleasantly.

“I’m seventeen,” he said. “My- I started school a year late.”

She looked at him and knew instantly that she should change the subject.

“I’m sixteen. Just had my birthday last week.”

“Oh.” Finn smiled at her, and she found it impossible not to smile back. “Happy belated birthday.”

“Thanks.”

“Did you have a fun party?”

She’d had half a portion of food for dinner for having figured out what the problem was with a motorcycle at Mr Plutt’s shop, played around with some scrap metal and then hid in her room to dream about a car she’d buy herself some other birthday and enjoy the chocolate bar she’d been saving for the occasion.

She swallowed the last piece of her sandwich. “It was nice.”

The customer said thanks and left, and Poe came back. “Ready to get back to work?”

They nodded, and spent the next half an hour going over the use of the till. Rey thought it a win that she didn’t have a panic-induced heart attack when a customer – an elderly, very small and very wrinkled lady whom Poe called Miss Kanata – came in and Poe very casually asked her to do the transaction (he was standing right next to her, but still). Finn gave her a clandestine thumbs-up after Miss Kanata had checked her change and wished them a good day.

After that, his eyes turned to the display case and he frowned. “Can I ask a question?”

Poe slouched against the counter. “Of course.”

“Why are those pastries called Hair Buns? Isn’t that-“

“A very gross image? Yeah.” Poe laughed. “Let’s just say that Mr Organa-Solo is not allowed to name stuff around here anymore.”

Miss Kanata chose that moment to come back to get something she’d forgotten, and Rey could see Finn swallow nervously as Poe in turn asked him to sell them. He managed just fine, but Rey was abruptly reminded that Finn hadn’t even had the few hours of time to get used to working at the café that she’d had.

Miss Kanata asked Poe something about Ms Organa’s whereabouts, and Rey and Finn could step back.

“Hey,” Rey said, smiling at Finn and reaching out to squeeze his shoulder. “Good job.”

Finn blinked; he didn’t look like he was very used to stuff like that either. But then he smiled, wide and bright, and any doubts about whether it had been a bad idea vanished from Rey’s head.

“You too.” His hand touched Rey’s briefly; it felt like it was intentional. “We might actually survive this summer without getting fired.”

“We might.” They were still grinning at each other like idiots. “Or we might even thrive here.”

She could have sworn Finn’s eyes actually sparkled.

“We just might.”


	3. A Regular Friday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for how long it took me to update this! I'll try not to take this long in the future.
> 
> To a lesser extent, I'm also sorry for the chapter title.

“Really? Wow.”

Rey bit her lip, but Finn could still see the smile she was trying to conceal. “It’s not as impressive as it sounds.”

“Even then, it’s impressive,” he told her. “Because it sounds super impressive.”

Rey smoothed her apron. “It’s just cars. I’ve been- Mr Plutt has let me hang around them for a long time, you just pick stuff up.”

Finn kind of wanted to playfully nudge her shoulder with his, but they were at the opposite ends of the staff area behind the counter so it would have been weird.

“I can just about realise when mine needs to be serviced,” he said. “It’s not just cars.”

Rey raised her gaze to meet his. She was blushing. “One day, I’m going to find something you’re great at and then I am going to compliment you until you’re really embarrassed and just want the earth to swallow you.”

He felt blood rushing to his cheeks, spared a moment to be thankful Rey couldn’t see that and briefly entertained the thought of telling her that one B+ would have brought his GPA down considerably.

“You do realise that that is the worst threat ever?”

She looked squarely at him. “When was the last time you were really embarrassed?”

His first thought, for some reason, was just Mr Hux in general, but he couldn’t say that; it made something unpleasant tug at his stomach. Fortunately, though, he was saved from having to answer her by the front door swinging open and a group of four people stumbling in.

They both stood up straighter and put on their sweetest smiles.

“Hello, how can we help you?”

One of them, a girl with black hair and a faded orange t-shirt, laughed as she rested her head against the shoulder of another, a tall girl whose arm found its way around her waist immediately.

“Poe was right!” the girl in the orange t-shirt proclaimed. “They _are_ so cute!”

“They will learn,” the shorter of the two guys said, sitting down at one of the booths. “One day, they will learn.”

It sounded vaguely like a threat, but the guy was smiling so it couldn’t be that bad. Right?

The tall girl seemed to decide to take pity on them (Finn only needed a quick glance at Rey to verify that she was doing exactly as poor a job of hiding her bewilderment as Finn knew he was) and said as she and the other girl leaned against the wall by the booth, “Nothing, thanks, we’re just waiting for Poe. Is he getting off anytime soon?”

One of them said something that was probably funny if you heard it, and the tall girl made a vague imitation of a punch in the general direction of the guy who’d stayed silent so far.

“He’s just talking something over with Ms Organa,” Finn said, not feeling very much reassured. “I’m sure he’ll be here soon enough.”

The girl in the orange t-shirt said thanks, and then the group turned inwards to debate something that sounded suspiciously like a video game but probably could have been about actual flying; Finn certainly wouldn’t know the difference. Mr Hux didn’t approve of him playing video games, so he didn’t because there were none in the house.

Rey moved closer to him. Neither one of them said anything, but it still felt like they were in perfect understanding.

Luckily for them, it only took a very short while before Poe emerged from the back room, shouting a goodbye at Ms Organa before the noise from the booth caught his attention.

“You’re early!”

The girl in the orange t-shirt made a show of checking her wrist, which did not have a watch on it. “You’re late.”

Poe checked his watch, which he actually was wearing. “It’s two past, Jess, we said around six.”

“‘Around six’ means you’re the one who’s supposed to wait around,” the girl – Jess – said. “So, are we going or what?”

The guys stood up, and Poe turned to Finn and Rey.

“Have a good evening,” he said. “Try not to burn the place down. Ms Organa’s staying till closing, so if you have any problems, just ask her.”

“Will do.”

“Have fun,” Finn said.

“With these weirdos?” Poe made a dismissive gesture towards his friends – they had to be friends, Finn thought, good friends – but his eyes were all warmth. His words seemed addressed as much to the group waiting for him as for Finn and Rey. “Iolo will keep up a running commentary during the whole film, which you won’t hear anyway because Snap eats popcorn super loudly, and don’t even get me started on Jess and Karé’s handholding. You can see it in the dark, it’s gross.”

In the background, Jess took the tall girl’s – she had to be Karé – hand and made the most conspicuous show ever of holding it. Poe obligingly made a gagging noise.

“See?”

“Don’t be a hater, Dameron,” Karé said. “We all know we’re just going to the cinema for the third time this summer because _someone_ has a crush on the ticket vendor.”

Poe made a show of flipping her off, but Finn didn’t miss the way he ducked his head and bit his lip.

“Have fun,” Rey said as well.

“I’ll try.” Poe waved as them as he went. “See you!”

They waved back until the door banged closed after Iolo or Snap; Finn couldn’t tell.

“Well,” he said, “that was-“

“Terrifying,” Rey finished for him before adding in a quieter tone, “And for some reason I envy him anyway.”

Finn nodded; that was pretty much how Finn felt as well. He didn’t want the following silence to stretch too far, though, or else it would become really depressing, so he said the first thing that came to his head.

“Are your friends that loud as well?”

Rey bit her lip. “I don’t have that many friends,” she said, like it was a confession. “Mr Plutt’s house is kinda far away from everyone and Jakku is a shark pool anyway.”

Oh. That was even worse than a depressing silence. Suddenly, Finn was very glad that he didn’t have very close friends either, not the way Poe obviously did; it would have been awkward to talk about them to Rey.

“You’re going to D’Qar next year, though, right?” he said, nudging at Rey’s shoulder gently. “If Poe’s demonstration is indicative of anything, you’ll have your own obnoxious friends to bicker with soon enough.”

He got a quick, lop-sided flash of a smile for his troubles. “Maybe. How about you? You look like you’d have lots of friends, too.”

His attempt at looking like he wasn’t avoiding her eyes probably wasn’t very good, but then again, that manoeuvre had fooled a lot of people before, although those people had never seemed to look at him quite as intently as Rey was. It was nice, he wasn’t sure anyone had ever looked at him like that before, just- It was a little unnerving.

“I have some,” he said, not really wanting to lie to her. He was fairly sure his maths study group or the chess club did not exactly qualify as friends, but it would be humiliating to admit to Rey that she and Poe were probably both the fastest and closest friends he’d ever made. “But not like that.”

He made a vague gesture towards the door, where Poe and his friends most certainly no longer were.

The ensuing silence had great potential for awkwardness, but mercifully a customer wandered in, spent seven minutes trying to decide what sort of pastries he wanted (Finn timed it) and then insisted on paying with so many small coins that it probably took him a few minutes to verify that it was the right amount (he couldn’t time it, much as he’d have liked to, but it felt like ages), and when the guy finally left and took his Irresistible Cream Cakes with him, it seemed like the most natural thing to just hold Rey’s gaze and very meaningfully roll his eyes.

“Yeah,” she said, trying to hold in a giggle. “Pretty much.”

It was a slow night; according to Ms Organa, who occasionally emerged from the back to check on them, that was how it usually was. They took turns in having their sandwiches, but they might have as well had them at the same time; no one came in while they ate.

Finn had only worked in customer service for a few days, but he was already thoroughly not surprised that the last customer of the evening ran in two minutes before closing, just as indecisive as the man from earlier, resulting in Finn and Rey having to stay in longer. He didn’t mind; at home, all he’d had to pass time would have been Mr Hux’s company and the stack of books he’d checked out of the library for summer reading, and they were all very interesting but he’d already spent all his evenings for a week with them.

Rey didn’t seem to mind either; as Ms Organa finally sent them off with a few deformed Hair Buns (much better in taste than in name, Finn had been relieved to discover) and a few words of sympathy, she held the door open for Finn on their way out and was still smiling when they found themselves standing on the sidewalk surprisingly close to each other.

“I think I like closing shift,” Rey said, pushing the plastic bag with the Hair Buns into her satchel.

“Yeah.” It had been fun, although that was probably mostly because Rey was fun to be around. Then again, Finn liked Poe and Ms Organa too, so it would probably always be nice because there would always be someone else around. “Are you going to be okay on your way home? It’s kind of late.”

Rey stopped where she had one hand in her pocket, presumably fishing out her keys, and another on her bike. She had a weird expression on her face, and for a second Finn was afraid he’d somehow insulted her.

Then she spoke, and her voice was weird as well but it didn’t sound offended.

“Yeah,” she said. “Of course. Should I not be?”

“No, it’s just-“ He ducked his head, suddenly embarrassed. “I could drive you home if you wanted. You said it’s kind of far.”

Rey looked at him intently, suddenly looking very vulnerable, and Finn wanted to reach out to touch her shoulder, to make sure she actually was okay, but somewhere at the back of his skull, Mr Hux started talking about not accosting innocent, upstanding girls, and they were alone on the street and it was nearly ten pm.

“I’m used to it,” she said. The vulnerable look gone and replaced with her usual no-nonsense outlook and a small smile, she reached out to touch his arm. “But thanks for offering.”

“It’s a standing offer.” He found it easy to smile again. “It must get tiring going everywhere by bike.”

“Keeps me fit,” Rey said, straddling her bike, and Finn could hardly argue with that. “You have a day off tomorrow, right?”

“Yeah. But after that I have four days of opening shift.”

“I’ll see you on Sunday, then.” Rey scrunched her nose as if she was trying to remember her own schedule. “And Monday and Tuesday.”

“And pretty much every day we’re both working for the rest of the summer,” Finn teased her.

Rey didn’t look very bothered by that. “Yeah. I should probably go, see you on Sunday!”

“See you!”

He was already in his car when he realised he’d smiled all the way there.


	4. Paycheques

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... Okay, about what I said about not taking that long to update again? Not going to say that again, but I will say that I have literally no intentions of leaving this fic unfinished, so even if the updates are sometimes slow, they will come.

Rey did her best not to bounce. The feeling of wanting to do that was quite foreign to her, but she found it was pretty amazing.

Except Poe and Finn would probably think it was weird. Poe had worked for Ms Organa for years, it was nothing special to him, and Finn looked very laidback and calm even though it was his first time as well.

But paycheques!

It wasn’t the first time she’d get compensation for her work, but it would be the first time it would be in money and not just food given by Mr Plutt. She wasn’t actually sure how much money it was going to be, but she’d already toured the supermarket and made some calculations, and it was definitely going to be enough for meals for a week, especially as she’d get some food at the café anyway. People paid for food and rent with money they earned; she was pretty sure she was going to have some savings at the end of the summer, even if Mr Plutt did not give her any food at all.

Ms Organa emerged from the back with crisp white envelopes, and Rey bounced, just a little. She assumed a serious expression as she handed Poe one of them, then Finn and finally Rey. She couldn’t contain her smile, and only the knowledge that Finn wasn’t opening his and Poe’s was already in his pocket stopped her from ripping the envelope open.

“Could you check that I put in the right amount of hours?” Ms Organa said, and Rey had a feeling she was being given permission. “It’s always good to check that, I make mistakes sometimes and it’s better to fix them sooner rather than later.”

Poe’s letter stayed in his pocket, but Finn did start slowly working open the envelope, obviously trying to keep it as intact as possible. Rey could admire his restraint, but at the same time it was inconvenient because she didn’t want to appear too eager and so had to do the same.

Neutral expression, she reminded herself as she was finally pulling out the paper with calculations and the paycheque from the envelope. Neutral expression, it’s just a number, neutral expression-

Oh god.

She didn’t slam her hand against her mouth, but she definitely did bounce. Considering the circumstances, she was surprised she managed even that much restraint.

It wasn’t a large sum, she knew objectively. If she’d had to pay rent, she probably would not have been able to, but-

She could barely imagine buying enough food to reach the triple digits, and-

She would definitely have some savings, by the end of the summer.

“Mine’s correct,” she said without having even looked at the amount of hours. She’d spent too much time staring at the total, it would have looked weird.

“Mine, too.” Finn smiled. “Thank you, Ms Organa.”

Rey was still bouncing a little as the three of them walked out the coffee shop. She was so focused on the paycheque, her mental calculations for her imminent grocery-shopping and how she was, if possible, even happier to come to work that she almost missed what Poe was saying.

“Celebratory ice cream, okay? On me, there’s a great place just down the road.”

She had never turned down an opportunity for free food, but as she and Finn both accepted and they began walking towards the shop Poe pointed at, Rey found herself thinking that she probably would have gone even if she’d had to pay for it herself.

—

Finn had been trying to appear more excited than he’d really felt as they’d waited for their paycheques; Rey had said it would be her first, whereas Finn had done some work for his neighbours and some of Mr Hux’s friends already, but it still felt like he should probably be more enthusiastic about it than he felt.

Truth be told, he was happier to hear Ms Organa’s warm ‘see you all tomorrow’ than he’d been to see the cheque.

Now, though, walking into an ice cream shop with Poe and Rey, he was having the opposite problem; casually hanging out with friends probably did not warrant that big a smile.

He couldn’t help it, though. He had vague memories of playing with the neighbours’ children in his foster homes before Mr Hux, but that was literally over a decade ago, and ever since- Mr Hux lived in an area where Finn was the only kid, and it didn’t matter how many extracurricular activities he signed up for, he had always felt like an outsider at First Order, elementary school to high school, to the point that he knew the chess club sometimes hung out on the weekends and yet no one had ever invited him. He wasn’t lonely, it was just-

People wanting to spend time with him, for no reason other than because they liked his company, was a novelty he’d really love to get used to.

It turned out that Poe’s friend Jess worked at the ice cream shop, which meant that they got free sprinklers and high fives with their ice creams; Poe insisted on paying for caramel sauce.

“Just go with it,” Jess said as Finn tried to tell Poe he didn’t need to. “He’s super generous like that, it’s so annoying being his friend.”

Finn didn’t say anything after that, mostly because Poe’s actual friend had implied that Finn was Poe’s friend as well, and it was probably lame but it was so amazing to hear that.

“We should have taken these to go,” Poe said very loudly as he followed Finn and Rey to a table. “The customer service here, my god.”

“Just five minutes ago you were saying that this was a great place.” Rey dug into her ice cream. “Didn’t he, Finn?”

Finn shared a smirk with Rey. He’d definitely love to get used to this. “He did.”

Poe made a great show of acting wounded as Jess laughed behind the counter.

“The ice cream’s really good, though,” Finn said. Maybe he could suggest they’d come here after work at some other point as well. Mr Hux wouldn’t like it, but Finn could explain it away as a social obligation of workplace politics if Mr Hux noticed he was coming in later than he was supposed to.

Rey nodded her agreement.

“I know,” Poe said. “That makes it so much worse.”

Jess’s scoff was definitely exaggerated for effect. “Come over here and say that again!”

Poe stood up, set his ice cream cup down on the table and did just that.

“How long do you think they’ll continue that?” Rey asked after they’d watched Poe and Jess banter from their seats for some time.

“Long enough for Poe to forget he even bought ice cream, I’d say.” Finn nodded at it, abandoned in front of them. “We could probably split it and he wouldn’t notice.”

Rey swallowed the spoonful she’d just pushed into her mouth, looked at the ice cream and then focused her gaze on Finn.

“Probably. It would be rude, though.”

Finn laughed. “Definitely.”

“You don’t strike me as a rude person,” Rey said, her eyes intent on Finn. He no longer found it unnerving; there was a softness there that he’d either missed when they looked at each other the first time or that had since developed. “You’re really nice.”

He ducked his head, feeling his cheeks flush warm.

“You’re really nice, too,” he managed, and added more confidently, “Everyone I’ve met this summer is.”

“I know.” Rey scraped her spoon against the edges of the cup; he hadn’t noticed her finishing her ice cream. “It’s-“

She bit her lip and didn’t finish that sentence, and Finn didn’t want to push it. He wondered if she was as unused to people like Poe and Ms Organa as he was. It wasn’t a pleasant thought.

“I’m really happy Ms Organa hired us both,” he said.

Her smile was surprised and the softest he’d ever seen. “Me too. I was so sure she’d choose you over me.”

Finn blinked. “Why?”

Rey bit her lip again and seemed to focus on getting the last traces of melted ice cream from her cup. “You were just so- Calm and pleasant and stuff. And you definitely looked like you could always give exactly the right change and not get overwhelmed if someone paid you in pennies. If I owned a café, I’d want you manning the till.”

“You thought I was calm?” He couldn’t help laughing. “I was a little afraid of you when I first realised we were both there for the same thing.”

The laugh seemed almost like he’d startled it out of her. “Really?”

“Yeah. You looked like you’d win a wrestling match against a shark.”

She snorted. “I did tell you that Jakku is a shark pool.”

He didn’t get the chance to give her a jokey compliment since the arrival of a customer forced Poe and Jess to finish whatever their banter had turned into and he came back to the table.

“Sorry about that. We got a little carried away.”

“It’s fine,” Rey said. “We were just swapping first impression stories.”

Poe swallowed a huge spoonful of his ice cream. “You were both so precious, trying to hide how nervous you were. It was very sweet.”

Rey gave him an unimpressed stare that Finn was glad not to be at the receiving end of. “If you’re trying to sound like you’re forty, you’re doing a great job.”

Poe seemed unrepentant. “I _would_ make a fabulous cool uncle.”

He was probably right; Poe was uncomfortably close to the nice older mentor friend Finn had dreamed about when he was ten and Mr Hux’s rules made even less sense than usual.

Except-

“You’re like a year older than I am,” he pointed out.

“My aunt’s cousin’s nephew is actually older than his uncle,” Poe said, unfazed. “Plus, in a few months I’m going to be a senior in high school, so that definitely makes me very adult and authoritative and gives me the right to call you two adorable with impunity.”

“Change the subject and ignore him.” The customer had left and Jess had moved from the counter to wipe the tables. “Otherwise, he’ll just take anything you say as encouragement to go on.”

Finn got the distinct impression that Poe gave Jess the finger, but he couldn’t see it because the table was on the way.

“Anyway,” Poe said, turning back to Finn and Rey. “First paycheque. Any plans for that?”

“I’d tell you,” Rey’s deadpan expression was perfect, “but then I’d have to kill you.”

They laughed.

“I don’t want to know that badly,” Poe said, turning to Finn. “How about you?”

“Uhm.” He’d deposit the cheque to his bank account, like he’d done with all of his earnings, just as Mr Hux had taught him. “I’m saving it.”

“Cool. For what?”

“I-” Mr Hux had never really seemed to care about that part. “College? I guess.”

Or finishing high school, more likely. Mr Hux had never made it a secret that when Finn was eighteen, he would have to pay his own way and not be a freeloader like he could be up to that point. (Finn had never pointed out to him that he knew Mr Hux got money for fostering Finn. It didn’t seem like that was the point Mr Hux was trying to drive home.)

Poe gave him a long look that Finn didn’t know how to interpret, but then seemed to decide to shrug it off. “Foresight is twenty out of twenty.”

—

They stayed at the shop for quite some time after their ice creams were finished, and it was a testament to how fun it was that it was only when they were leaving that Rey realised she probably could have got another free ice cream out of it if she’d played her cards right.

She couldn’t bring herself to regret anything, though.

“This was really fun,” Finn said as they were leaving. “Thank you for the ice cream, Poe.”

“Any time.” Poe swung on his chair a little; he was staying, probably waiting for Jess’s shift to finish. “Really. We should do this again sometime.”

Finn seemed unusually focused to putting his chair neatly under the table, and Rey wondered if his cheeks would feel hot if she put her hand on them. When he looked up, though, it was with a lop-sided grin. “Are you offering unlimited free ice cream?”

Poe laughed, and Finn laughed, and it was came surprisingly easily to her to join them.

“It _was_ fun,” she said when they’d all stopped. “We should definitely do it again.”

She’d seen the ice cream prices, and they definitely did not offer much calories per dollar, but she had been all too aware of the envelope in her satchel all afternoon; she had more than she needed to survive, and she couldn’t think of anything better to indulge in than her friends’ company.

It was weird to think about, the word entering her mind by surprise, but as she looked at Poe, grinning on his chair, and Finn, fishing car keys out of his pocket, it was obvious that it was accurate.

Finn didn’t offer to drive her home again, which was good because Rey didn’t have to come up with an excuse. ‘Mr Plutt’s place is sad and weird and seeing it always leads to questions I don’t want to answer’ wouldn’t exactly cut it.

She walked Finn to his car and then continued on to her bike. The ride home was as repetitive as it had always been, but it was made more tolerable by the memories of one of the best days she’d had in a long while.


	5. The Grocery Store

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Celebratory surprise update because it's my birthday and I felt like it! Unfortunately, content-wise it is not celebratory at all (there's a whole chapter in my planned outline that's centred on a birthday party, ah the missed thematical accuracy!), but we can't always have everything.

Rey bit her lip, contemplating the oranges in front of her. Even half price, they were too expensive to justify rationally.

But rationality had absolutely nothing to do with how much she wanted them.

She was getting too reckless with her spending, Rey told herself. It was one thing to buy one scoop at the ice cream shop on her day off because she had happened to run into Poe and Finn as they were leaving work and it had just kind of happened. That was a one-time thing, and she hadn’t done it for the ice cream. The oranges, however, would have just been an indulgence.

No, she told herself and moved away from them. Mr Plutt still gave her vitamin supplements; she didn’t need oranges. If she ever managed to save a thousand dollars, she’d celebrate with oranges, half price or not.

It was an impulsive thought, and a sum she made up on the spot. After brief consideration, Rey decided it could stay. ‘Not yet’ sounded more hopeful than an outright no. It would help keep her desires in check.

She walked quickly away from the fruit and veg section, only stopping in front of a dog food display to examine her shopping basket. It was not very heavy; she’d been to the supermarket just a few days earlier, only coming today because Mr Plutt had said something about her earning money and Rey had been hit with the terrifying thought that he might well demand she give it to him.

Maybe she should buy some more oatmeal. Just in case. And maybe hide part of her food stash in one of those trunks in the garage that Mr Plutt never looked into.

That was probably not necessary.

But buying some more oatmeal was probably still a good idea.

She walked to the right aisle only to find it blocked by a tall, lanky man inspecting something on the top shelf while his shopping cart looked like it had been intentionally positioned to make it impossible for anyone to pass him.

He’d better move it before she reached him, or she would move it for him. The man’s sour face gave off a vibe that he wouldn’t like anyone doing that, but it would be his problem.

As it happened, the man seemed to make his decision and turned to put a box into his cart right at the moment Rey was reaching him, pulling his cart out of the way. Rey gave him a pointed glare him anyway, but he probably didn’t notice it.

She crouched down to get another bag of oatmeal from the bottom shelf and was relieved to hear a cart moving away towards the end of the aisle.

“Took you long enough,” a voice said from the same direction, and it was so unpleasant that Rey could do nothing but assume that it belonged to the aisle-blocker.

“I’m sorry, Mr Hux. There was a queue.”

Rey stood up, her head turning rapidly.

“Finn!”

It really was him, turning towards her voice where he’d suddenly come to a halt, forcing the aisle-blocker to follow his lead. So he _could_ keep his cart to the edge of the aisle.

“Rey!” He gave her a bright smile as she reached him and- She figured she’d have to call the aisle-blocker Mr Hux in her head. Suddenly he felt more tolerable by association. “Hi.”

“Hi.” She returned his smile. “What are you doing here?”

She half-expected Finn to say, ‘Shopping for groceries’ with that expression he always had when he was telling a joke, and for a moment, he looked like he was going to. Then he seemed to change his mind, standing up a little straighter.

She had seen him do the exact same thing many times before, but it had never filled her with such ice cold dread as it did now, watching Finn glance very briefly at Mr Hux.

Suddenly, she was fairly sure she knew where he’d got the habit.

—

Mr Hux was biting the inside of his lip. Rey probably couldn’t have been able to tell even if she’d looked away from Finn, but Finn had known Mr Hux long enough.

He wasn’t happy.

“We sometimes come here,” Finn said. “They have a very wide selection. I didn’t realise you lived close by.”

Mr Hux’s mouth did that pulling thing it usually did when he was prepared to disapprove, but Rey spoke before Mr Hux could.

“Not that close, but it’s still the closest grocery store to Mr Plutt’s house.”

Finn almost said something, but Mr Hux’s mouth was pulling again.

“Who’s this, Finn?”

Mr Hux usually used that tone only about him. Then again, Finn wasn’t sure but it kind of felt like it was still about him; Mr Hux wasn’t so much disapproving of Rey, but of Finn knowing her.

“This is Rey. We work together at the Resistance Café.” He turned to Rey. “This is Mr Hux, my foster father.”

“Nice to meet you, Mr Hux.”

She was saying it just out of politeness, Finn could tell, and besides looked at Finn when she said the words.

Mr Hux nodded curtly.

Finn suddenly found himself wishing Mr Hux hadn’t ran out of that weird expensive coffee mix he drank that morning. Or that they’d come in half an hour earlier. He had seen Rey interact with lots of strangers, Ms Organa the first time they met and, for a closer comparison, Poe’s mother once when she came to the coffee shop to pick Poe up. She’d never looked like that, with any of them.

She did not like Mr Hux.

Finn didn’t dare hazard a guess why.

“Are you working tomorrow?” he asked to stop the silence from becoming stifling.

“Closing shift,” Rey said, her voice an odd mixture of pleasant and disgusted.

Probably not with him, Finn’s brain told him. He hadn’t done anything wrong, had he?

“Me too.”

“Is this one of the co-workers you had ice cream with?” Mr Hux asked.

His voice sounded a lot like it had that time when Slip had brought a pack of cigarettes to the chess club meeting and accidentally set off the fire alarm, leaving Finn to explain to Mr Hux why he came in two hours later than usual with his coat smelling of cigarette smoke.

Finn doubted Mr Hux disapproved of sugary treats that much.

“Yes,” he said.

“Poe insisted,” Rey said, and her smile was suddenly very sweet and but not very _her_. “You can’t say no to a senior employee, right, Finn?”

“Right.” His voice came out normal despite the way his stomach tied itself in knots at Rey’s words. He knew her well enough by now to be sure she didn’t think it had been like that, but- If she didn’t, and she still said it, what must she be thinking? “It was nice.”

“It was,” Rey agreed, with a glance at Mr Hux. “Your son is a very good co-worker, Mr Hux.”

Mr Hux’s mouth had stopped pulling. “I have tried to raise Finn right.”

Rey’s eyes flashed, and for a second, Finn was afraid she was going to capsize her shopping basket on Mr Hux’s head. Mr Hux probably didn’t notice; he was looking past them.

“We should go,” Mr Hux said. “Come on, Finn.”

Finn tried to look normal as he gave Rey a smile. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Rey looked like her usual self again as she returned the sentiment. Maybe he’d imagined all those weird cues in her behaviour. Maybe Mr Hux’s weird corporate mentality struck a chord with her; she had been brought up by a small business owner, after all.

The maybes didn’t sound very convincing in his ears, but they made it a little easier to breathe.

“She seemed like a nice girl,” Mr Hux said as they left the aisle, his lips pressing together tightly after he said the words.

“She is.”

“Come back directly after your shift ends tomorrow. I don’t want you loitering on the street.”

Finn looked down at his shoes. He would have done so anyway; closing shift finished late, it wasn’t exactly the best time to hang out with friends afterwards. But Mr Hux’s tone was all disapproval except for that small undercurrent of astonished anger. It was Finn’s least favourite Mr Hux mood.

“Of course, Mr Hux.”

—

Rey watched as Finn disappeared around the corner of the aisle and only then realised that she was shaking.

She couldn’t run after them to scream at Mr Hux, she told herself again. Whatever she did, Finn would still get into a car and drive home with the man. She had yelled at Mr Plutt once, and hadn’t eaten for a full day after that. Finn had shared a cookie with a then-stranger like it was nothing, so Mr Hux probably wasn’t Mr Plutt, but-

Mr Hux certainly was something. Rey felt foolish for not having realised it earlier.

Taking a few very deep breaths, she made herself focus on her basket until it stopped shaking in her hands.

It was still very hard to suppress the irrational urge to run after them in the parking lot and thrust a bag of oatmeal into Finn’s pocket when Mr Hux wasn’t looking.

Just in case.


	6. The Crush

There was a boy.

Well, man, maybe, Finn wasn’t sure. He looked older than Finn but was still probably in high school, it was difficult to decide on a word.

There was a guy. That sounded good.

He wasn’t really anything special, as far as Finn could tell. Sure, he smiled and said please and thank you when he came in to order a Hair Bun and a glass of apple juice (always sit in), which was more than Finn could say for some people, and had a very impressive collection of t-shirts with comics characters on them, but other than that, he was just a regular guy.

Or so Finn thought until he looked up from a table he was wiping to see Poe laugh just a little too loudly and duck his head while Regular Guy bit his lip as if slightly surprised that he’d managed to make Poe do that.

“I think the t-shirt guy regular is a ticket vendor at the cinema,” he said to Rey later that day when Poe’s shift was finished and the two of them were left alone (aside from Ms Organa).

Rey looked at him like she was searching for something. She’d been doing that a lot, ever since she’d met- Ever since they’d seen each other outside of work for the first time. Finn didn’t know what to make of that. He was familiar with uncomfortable looks, but this precise brand was different from what he was used to.

“I’ve never been to the cinema,” she said, frowned and added quickly, “DVDs are nicer.”

Finn didn’t go very often either, and he’d never seen the guy there. That wasn’t the point.

“No, I mean-“ His hand made a gesture. He had no idea what it meant, and probably Rey didn’t either. “Poe’s friends said he has a crush on the ticket vendor. I think it’s t-shirt guy.”

Rey pursed her lips. “That’s a theory.”

Finn hadn’t really had any follow-up plans, he’d just thought to share the observation with his friend, which was all well and good because Ms Organa stuck her head from the door to the back and asked one of them to come help her with something and they couldn’t continue the conversation.

Two days later, Poe and Finn were both working in the afternoon, and Regular T-shirt Guy was back. Finn tactfully withdrew from the counter to fill the milk and left Poe alone, resulting in three awkward jokes, one actually good one and far too much laughter for the quality of all four.

“Do you know that guy?” he asked innocently once the guy had finally drank the last of his juice and left.

Poe startled; he had been staring off into nothing, or perhaps more accurately at the front door that Regular T-shirt Guy had walked through before disappearing down the street.

“Ummm,” he said, the most uncertain Finn had ever seen him. “He goes to D’Qar, too. We were in the same chemistry class last year. His name is John.”

Finn could have sworn Poe’s tone changed at the name. It sounded... mushy.

“He seems nice.”

“He is.” Poe spoke past Finn, looking like he’d suddenly been transported to another planet, one where people had their hearts in their eyes. “He’s so nice, and he’s so smart, too, and Riley accidentally spilt a beaker full of water on his shirt once and that was _the_ best chemistry class _ever_ , and-“

Finn grabbed a mop, just so see if Poe would even notice him moving. Against all odds, he did, snapping back to his usual self and ending with, “So yeah, he’s cool” as if that could somehow make his previous monologue go away.

“He sounds cool,” Finn said and, seeing that he now had the mop, decided to go and use it.

Mr Hux would definitely disapprove of it, he thought as he mopped on, but Mr Hux disapproved of a lot of things. He glanced at Poe, who was adding more Splenda packets to the jar on the counter and smiling even more widely than he usually did.

Mr Hux’s disapproval didn’t matter one bit, Finn decided. He hoped it would work out for Poe.

\---

“I think your theory is right,” Rey said.

Finn blinked. He hadn’t slept well, and the morning shift had taken whatever energy he had left. The only reason he was still at Resistance Café was that he was waiting for the caffeine to have an effect before he’d drive home. “Which theory?”

“About t-shirt guy.” Rey rested her elbows on the counter, leaning in a little. It would have appeared very conspiratorial if she hadn’t been speaking at normal volume. “He came in yesterday when Poe was out with Ms Organa, and his smile dropped the second he realised I was the only one there.”

“You think he likes Poe back?”

“It seemed so.” Rey tilted her head as if considering. “It would make sense. Poe is very likable.”

She said it casually, like it was an objective observation that in no way touched on her personally. He was glad to see that, but didn’t want to examine too closely why.

“I don’t understand why neither one of them has done anything about it, though.” Rey furrowed her brow. “It’s been weeks, and that’s just this summer.”

Finn toyed with the empty coffee mug still in front of him. “Maybe they don’t realise they both like each other. Like that, I mean. It must be nerve-wrecking.”

“But they could still talk!” Rey threw her hands in the air, almost hitting the display case. “I mean, other than frequenting the other’s workplace. It’s- Uhm, hello, Miss Kanata. Sorry to have kept you waiting.”

Finn turned around, and sure enough, Miss Kanata was standing behind him; his back had probably blocked her from Rey’s view, and neither one of them had heard her come in.

“It’s fine,” Miss Kanata said. “I should apologise for eavesdropping.”

Her tone didn’t sound like she was planning on anything even remotely like that.

“It’s a public place,” Rey said. “I shouldn’t have brought it up like that anyway.”

“It is a public place.” Miss Kanata adjusted her glasses. They were large for her face and made her eyes appear just about as large. “And if Poe Dameron wanted to keep his feelings private, he really should make an effort to tamp down that smile. You don’t need to have my eyesight to see it, and I definitely don’t need to hear you talk about it to know it.”

Finn couldn’t help his smile; it was far too easy to imagine Poe accidentally shower Miss Kanata with a dozen lovelorn speeches about John the ticket vendor. She was the type of person you just found yourself telling things to. His mental image of Miss Marple was never going back to what it had been prior to knowing her.

Rey was still blushing. “Anyway, sorry you had to wait. What can I get you?”

“Just the usual.”

Rey shovelled Miss Kanata’s usual order into a paper bag with less finesse than usual (Finn couldn’t blame her; for someone who had never been anything but nice to both of them, Miss Kanata had something very unnerving about her), but she returned Miss Kanata’s change promptly and correctly. Miss Kanata got to the door before turning around.

“Oh, I forgot to say.” She smiled “Your friend really need not fear rejection. There is so much budding young love in this shop I don’t even need to put sugar in my Sunday coffee anymore.”

\---

“Why not?”

“Because I- Because- Just, it’s not that simple!”

“What’s not simple?” Finn asked, walking out into the café from the back, more concentrated on tying the laces of his apron than on whatever Rey and Poe had been discussing.

“It _seems_ simple,” Rey said to Poe before turning to Finn. “If you like someone, you should spend time with them, right?”

Ah. Of course this would be about that. “It seems like the logical thing to do.”

“Love’s not logical,” Poe muttered with admirable dramatics.

“You’re still being weird about it,” Rey said. “I bet when he comes in again, you’re just going to make more lame jokes about terribly named pastries instead of asking him if he’d like to go out with you.”

Poe crossed his arms. “My jokes are not that bad.”

He turned to Finn as if expecting that Finn would back him up.

“I would laugh at them if I had a crush on you,” Finn said. “But not otherwise.”

“I’m just saying,” Rey walked around the counter to wipe at coffee stains, “every time he comes in, _I_ kind of feel like asking him for you, just to put you out of your misery.”

Poe gasped. “You would _not_.”

A couple walked in, saving Rey the trouble of answering.

\---

“You wouldn’t, would you?” Finn asked fifteen minutes later when they were fetching boxes of soft drink bottles from the back.

“No,” Rey said, holding the door open with her foot as Finn went through it, both of them carrying two heavy boxes. “I don’t even know anything about romance. But he’s still being weird.”

“He kind of is.”

“Maybe it’s the Hair Buns. Ms Organa’s husband named them, he might have accidentally cursed all romance here.”

Finn laughed. “That’s a theory.”

\---

It was ten minutes till the end of Poe’s shift that John the ticket vendor made his appearance that day. Rey was checking the rubbish bins around the customer area, and Finn was reorganising the pastries in the display case, mostly because there was nothing else to do. For similar reasons, Poe was wiping imaginary crumbs off the counter. He looked up and smiled, probably on instinct, as the door opened, but then his smile widened even further as he took in who it was. At that point, Finn thought it best to make his escape.

“I don’t really need help,” Rey said as Finn joined her by the second bin. “There’s really nothing to do here anyway, neither one of them is full.”

Finn nodded towards the counter. “Can we pretend for five minutes that you do? It’s awkward just to stand there.”

Rey followed his gaze and took in the scene. Poe was currently laughing at something John the ticket vendor had said.

“Okay.”

They ended up emptying both the bins anyway because standing without doing anything was no less awkward than standing by the counter, and that gave them a good excuse to slip out of the café to the dumpsters.

Dropping off the rubbish certainly didn’t take seven minutes, but they figured Poe probably wouldn’t mind them taking a break. Ms Organa wasn’t there at that moment, but she probably wouldn’t have either.

“Do you think it’s safe to go in yet?”

Finn checked his watch. “No one can spend almost ten minutes just buying a Hair Bun, right? He’ll still be there, but it should be okay.”

“You’re right.”

Against all expectations, all the tables were empty when they returned. Finn’s eyes met Rey’s, and the slight concern he felt was reflected in her gaze. And then noticed Poe, cleaning the hot chocolate machine but more importantly grinning so wide it didn’t seem to fit his face.

“I might have been a little weird about it.” His smile seemed to only get wider as he spotted them. “But my jokes are still not lame.”

Understanding dawned on him, and Finn smiled back at Poe. “So you said something other than that to him, right?”

“I don’t kiss and tell.” The cocky words were undercut by the ducking of Poe’s head and the small, almost bashful smile that replaced the grin. “But I do have a date once my shift ends, which will be in-“ He made a show of checking his phone. “Oh, look, it ended like five minutes ago, he must be waiting.”

“Better not keep him waiting,” Rey said.

Poe definitely didn’t need to be told twice; considering that he was staying overtime, it was probably admirable self-restraint and dedication to his work that he’d even waited for Finn and Rey to come back.

“See you tomorrow!” he shouted even more cheerfully than usual as he practically ran out the door, probably not even hearing Finn and Rey’s response.

Finn glanced at Rey and found her looking back, her smile probably rivalling his.

“Do you think Poe dating someone is going to be even worse than him pining after someone?” Rey asked.

“Probably.” Finn chuckled. “But he’ll also be really happy about it, so as his friends, we’ll have to deal.”

Rey’s eyes sparkled. “Doesn’t that mean that as his friends, we also get to do our best to embarrass him in front of his new boyfriend?”

Finn noted the mischievous tilt Rey’s smile had suddenly acquired and knew his own probably matched it.

“Probably.”


	7. The Favour

“Would you like some coffee, Ms Organa?”

Ms Organa looked up from her papers, looking a lot like she wanted to burn all of them.

“ _Yes_.” She glanced past Finn where an old couple – just passing by, they’d said as they’d paid for their Kessel cakes – was sitting and added, “If you wouldn’t mind.”

Rey had evidently heard their interaction as she offered Finn a mug of coffee as he approached the counter, and Finn wasted no time getting it to Ms Organa.

“Thank you,” she said with a smile aimed at both of them before frowning at her papers again.

The couple left, Mr Antilles dropped by to pick up his cake order, a group of teenagers neither Finn nor Rey recognised bought one cup of coffee and sat in a booth talking loudly for over an hour, and Ms Organa barely even looked up from her work. Her only acknowledgement of the world around her, aside from accepting more coffee, was a quick nod at Mr Calrissian’s cheerful greeting when he came in to buy twelve Parsec pies.

“She has been really busy,” Finn felt obliged to say in her defence.

Mr Calrissian simply laughed. “I’ve known her for almost thirty years, kid. You don’t have to make excuses for me.”

It was half an hour before closing time when Ms Organa finally sighed very loudly and leaned back in her chair.

“Finally.”

“All done?” Rey asked on her way back to the counter.

Neither one of them knew what Ms Organa had been working on, exactly, but it was clear it was as unpleasant as it was important.

“Completely done,” Ms Organa said, let out a deep breath and began collecting her papers. “For a whole year. And you can be sure _this time_ I won’t let Han spill coffee on it the first thing he comes back.”

“When will that be?” He had to admit to being mildly curious. From vague references, the portrait of Mr Organa-Solo that emerged was... interesting, to say the least.

“Some more weeks.” Ms Organa stood up. “A few more weeks of peace and things going just as I want them to. I intent to savour them.”

The words were biting, but they could not hide the undercurrent of exasperated affection in her tone.

She took her work to the back, probably her office, but came back very soon, stopping in front of the pastry display case.

“This calls for celebration,” she said. “Grab plates and take whatever you want, I doubt no one’s coming in this late anyway.”

Finn took the plate Rey offered to him and selected a Hair Bun (the name was gross but the pastry wasn’t). He stayed by the display case afterwards to hold it open for Rey, who bit her lip and seemed hesitate before taking the last Kessel cake.

Ms Organa did not sit down with them, despite the achievement they were celebrating being hers; she flitted around the shop, doing the few tasks that Finn and Rey would have had to do before leaving if Ms Organa had not decided to give them an impromptu break with refreshments.

“You can leave a little early,” she said when they were done and had placed their plates in the dishwasher. “I bagged the last of the pastries, you can take them.”

“Which one do you want?” Rey asked as they were walking out, holding out the two bags for Finn’s inspection.

“You can pick,” he said; Mr Hux usually ended up eating most of what Ms Organa sent him home with, and he’d never expressed any preference.

Rey seemed to consider the matter seriously, and eventually chose one of the bags; Finn wasn’t sure what was the difference between the two, but Rey always seemed more particular about food than he was, so there probably was one.

They walked in silence to where Rey’s bike and Finn’s car were parked.

“Can I-“ Rey bit her lip, squared her shoulders and looked at Finn. “Could you do me a favour?”

Finn smiled at her. “Of course. What do you need?”

Rey reached into her satchel and pulled out an envelope that Finn recognised it as one of Ms Organa’s paycheque envelopes. It was thicker, though.

“Can you hold onto this for me?”

\---

She wasn’t surprised to see the smile slip off Finn’s face, but she regretted it anyway. Finn took the envelope and Rey expected him to check the contents and then probably tell her that no, he would not hold that much money for her.

She couldn’t blame him. However determined he was to act like everything was fine, she couldn’t unlearn what she had seen with her own eyes.

He didn’t look inside, just stood there quietly, but Finn was smart; he must have guessed what was inside without even having to check.

“You don’t have to,” Rey said. “If you can’t, I understand.”

If he wouldn’t, she’d just have to think of something else. She could ask Poe the same thing, but instinct told her Poe would ask more questions and regardless of answers, tell someone who’d ask even more. It would probably be better just to hide it, the same as she had with her emergency food. If Mr Plutt decided to follow up on the hint he’d dropped that morning about how Rey hadn’t been contributing to the family economy recently while still living in his house, he wouldn’t find all of her savings.

She watched Finn’s Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed.

“I can,” he said. “Just- You’d really trust this to me?”

She frowned at him. The question kind of made sense, but this was _Finn_.

“I told you I’d trust you to handle money in my hypothetical coffee shop, didn’t I?” she said, trying to make a joke of it. It didn’t get him to smile, so she dropped it. “I trust you.”

Finn looked at her long and hard, trying to- She didn’t even know. Finn’s eyes were some of the most expressive she’d ever seen, and there as just _so_ much there, she couldn’t really make any sense of all of it.

“Okay,” he said finally, taking his backpack off and carefully putting the envelope in one of the pockets. “I’ll give it back whenever you want, you just tell me.”

Rey smiled at him. “Thanks.”

He slung the backpack behind his shoulder again. “No problem. I- I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“I have tomorrow off.” He didn’t look disappointed, per se, but whatever his look was saying, it was infinitely harder to witness. “I have nothing to do, though, so I might drop by anyway. We could get ice cream afterwards?”

Finn’s mouth smiled, but his eyes were still not quite happy. She had no idea how she could change that. It suddenly occurred to her that she might have looked a lot like that when they met at the grocery store. That was not a thought she wanted to dwell on.

“That sounds good,” Finn said. “I have the morning shift, so I’ll see you afterwards?”

“Perfect.” She gave Finn her brightest smile. “See you then!”

\---

Finn watched as Rey on her bike moved further and further away and eventually disappeared behind the corner. Even then, he had to make himself get inside his car.

The envelope she’d given him weighed heavy in his backpack; Finn had the irrational fear that it would just vanish.

Logically, he knew neither one of them had done anything wrong, but- He felt he needed to talk to someone about it, figure out the whole thing, but who could he talk to? Rey did not want to talk about it, that much was clear. After her, the obvious choice would have been Poe, but Finn had got the feeling Rey didn’t want anyone else to know, and he didn’t want to betray her trust even if he could not understand her reasons. Mr Hux usually regulated most aspects of Finn’s life and probably would have had a very strong opinion, but Finn already knew Mr Hux would not approve of him holding Rey’s money in any case.

He would have to hide the whole thing from Mr Hux. Whatever else he’d do, that much was blatantly clear.

With one last glance at his backpack, Finn started the car. He couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something he did not even realise he was seeing, something towering over everything that would help it all make sense if he could just get far enough from the whole thing and get a good look at it.

He’d previously worried a little about Rey cycling home alone that late, but as he reversed out of the parking space, Finn couldn’t help the uncomfortable feeling that her destination was no safer than her journey.


	8. The Birthday Party

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, I cannot promise that future updates will come any faster, but they're still going to come.

“So,” Poe leaned against a table and smiled at Finn and Rey, “do you guys have any plans for the weekend?”

Rey stretched her neck. “No, not really.”

She would probably end up doing endless calculations about how much money she had saved that summer, how long it would last if Mr Plutt wouldn’t let her work even when summer ended and how much more she could expect to earn during the rest of the summer now that Ms Organa’s husband was coming back and she’d probably get to work slightly less.

That probably still counted as ‘no plans’ to Poe.

Finn straightened his apron. “Me neither.”

“Great!” Poe made some movement that shook the table; for a second, Rey feared it would give out under him. “You should definitely come over on Saturday for my birthday party.”

She’d been to birthday parties before, mostly when she was still young and parents forced someone to invite the whole class. They were always well-catered and no one looked at you weirdly if you kept going back to the table to snack on food.

It was highly unlikely that that had anything to do with the elation she felt at Poe’s invitation.

Next to her, Finn was smiling as well. “I’ll have to check with Mr Hux, but I’m sure it’ll be okay.”

“Me too,” Rey said. Mr Plutt wouldn’t care, and she probably wouldn’t even tell him, but that wasn’t the point.

Poe grinned. “Wonderful! Mum’s only getting home in the middle of the night, so it’ll be from three onwards. I’ll give you my address.”

“Cool,” Finn said. “Can’t wait!”

\---

“It would be from three onwards,” he said, trying not to look as eager as he felt.

Mr Hux frowned at the newspaper, or perhaps at Finn; he could never really tell.

“What kind of party is it going to be?” Mr Hux asked with a sharp look. “I will not have you running around in some neighbourhood getting drunk or worse and making a spectacle of yourself.”

“Poe’s whole family is going to be there,” Finn said and, with a stroke of genius, added, “Ms Organa said she would drop by. She thinks it is important to maintain close relations with her employees.”

“Hmmm.” Mr Hux frowned at the newspaper again, but it was that kind of frown that told Finn he’d made it work. “In that case... I expect you to behave yourself in front of your employer.”

Finn was hard-pressed to come up with any bad behaviour he could partake in at a birthday party with Poe, Rey and Poe’s family and friends. The worst he could come up with would be to made accessory to Jess’s nefarious plan to drop confetti on Poe’s head.

“Of course,” he said.

\---

Poe lived on the outskirts of the town in almost precisely the opposite direction from the in the middle of nowhere where Rey lived, and she was momentarily not thinking when Finn offered to pick her up (they’d been coming up with gift ideas; she didn’t remember when she’d last laughed so much), so they arrived at the same time.

He hadn’t looked judgemental when he’d taken in the large yard littered with mostly broken cars, the house that kind of looked broken as well and the garage that hadn’t been repainted since Rey was seven. Mr Plutt had fortunately not had the time to come out to see if he was a customer; Rey had been waiting outside to make it a quick visit. But the car ride had been kind of awkward anyway, Rey keeping quiet to keep herself from explaining because explanations made you look guilty and Finn looking like he was definitely thinking far too much.

She didn’t want to ask what exactly he was overthinking, just crossed her fingers under the wrapped present in her lap and hoped he just felt bad her home was obviously not well cared for.

Poe’s house was a little small, and filled with people – his parents, his younger brother and sister, Jess, Karé, Iolo and Snap, John – giving Rey the impression that it was bursting at the seams a little. It felt warm, though, in a way that had nothing to do with the hot July weather, and the looks she and Finn exchanged as Poe received their gift with thanks (a pack of pre-paid cinema tickets and a cheeky note they’d spent half an hour formulating) washed away any residue awkwardness from the drive there.

“Oooh, _nice_ ,” Jess said, reading it from behind Poe’s shoulder.

She offered them both high-fives as Poe pretended to look unimpressed (it would have worked better if he’d managed not to smile).

“I miss those times you guys thought I was an authority figure,” he said. “You were so nice and well-behaved.”

Finn seemed to bite his lip. “We probably wouldn’t have come here if we still thought that.”

“Probably true.” Poe laughed. “That’s a small sacrifice, then. C’mon, we’re eating outside.”

He guided them through the house into the yard, telling them to ignore anything Jess might say about the messiness of his room (“Mine’s worse,” Rey said casually and didn’t mention her room was a cleared-out section of the basement). Back outside again, they took seats at one of the many small plastic foldaway garden tables that seemed to take over half of the backyard, or at least half of the area that was not already occupied by flowerbeds of different types. By chance, Rey’s chair was right next to one that seemed like a small rock garden, and she couldn’t suppress her delighted squeal.

“That’s so beautiful.”

“Dad says it’s his favourite grandchild.”

Her head turned suddenly; she’d never even noticed the girl sitting by the table in the shadow of a- bush. Rey didn’t know a lot about gardening.

“Why is it a grandchild?”

“I don’t know.” The girl looked very serious as she spoke. “Dad thinks it’s really funny, but he always laughs so hard through the explanation that I don’t understand why.”

“That’s unfortunate.” Finn shifted his chair so that he could talk to the girl as well. “You must be Poe’s sister.”

“He _is_ my brother,” the girl said, biting her lip as if considering it, “so I guess I must.”

“Nice to meet you,” Finn said. “I’m Finn.”

“I’m Ria.” The girl offered her hand up for Finn to shake, and Finn leaned past Rey to take it. Rey wanted to laugh but there was just something so incredibly sweet about it that she couldn’t.

“This is Rey,” Finn said as she let go of his hand. “We work with Poe.”

She felt a little foolish offering her hand to Ria, but she took it like there was nothing weird about it.

“I like your name,” Ria said. “It’s a lot like mine.”

“It is.” Rey smiled at her. This was not what she’d thought being invited to Poe’s birthday party would entail, but she didn’t mind. “I like yours too.”

The conversation didn’t last much longer; Poe’s mother called Ria to fetch something from the kitchen, and Jess, Karé and John sat down at the same table, starting a lively discussion, so Rey didn’t even notice if Ria came back from the house.

\---

It was a lovely party; Finn had never been part of a similar family celebration, yet it was exactly as he’d always thought they would be like.

(Okay, he hadn’t imagined that Dea, Poe’s older younger sister, would almost cartwheel herself into the cake, but somehow he wasn’t surprised when it happened.

“I was here first,” she said nonchalantly to Finn after having stopped herself at the last moment.

He couldn’t argue with that. Ms Bey obviously wanted to, but Dea got saved from her mother’s wrath by the arrival of Ms Organa.)

Finn had been a little afraid that he and Rey would feel out of place in company where everyone else knew each other better than they did and Poe would understandably have to tend to all of his guests equally. But although they did go long stretches of time without talking to Poe, and occasionally were even separated from each other, that feeling never quite came. Even when he ended up alone at a table with Poe’s mother, it wasn’t awkward.

“No, I live some way off,” he answered her question. “I go to First Order.”

Ms Bey pursed her lips, and Finn suddenly had a feeling he’d done something wrong.

“I know your principal, then,” was all she said, though, and smiled at Finn. “Would you like some more cake? Better go for it now before Dea tries for an encore performance.”

Rey found him on the living room sofa sometime later, trying to empty the full plate of birthday food he had no idea how he’d come into possession of.

“Thanks,” she said as Finn offered her the plate and took a pastry. “I don’t think I’ve actually eaten that much. Ms Organa was telling stories about Mr Calrissian’s car shop and I think I forgot.”

She furrowed her brow. Finn felt something uncomfortable settle in his stomach, thinking back to picking Rey up, but she obviously didn’t want to talk about it.

“Jess tried to dare me into an eating contest with her.” Finn set the plate on the coffee table in front of them within easy reach for both of them. “I think she eventually talked Ria into it, though. The rules seemed kind of complicated.”

“I think I saw part of that.” Rey picked up more food from the plate. “It was... interesting.”

“I bet it was.”

They sat together a while, just talking in between mouthfuls of food, until the plate started getting empty and Karé plopped down on the armchair close by. She was soon followed by Poe and John, who sat down on the floor, Poe’s hand finding John’s as soon as they were settled.

“Is Jess still trying to out-eat a nine-year-old?” John asked Karé.

“Nah.” Karé settled more comfortably in the armchair. “She definitely couldn’t keep up this long. I think I saw her talking to Ms Bey some time ago.”

“Who was talking to Ms Bey?”

They all turned to look at Jess, who’d obviously only just come into the room and now made her way to the armchair Karé was in, sitting down on the armrest, her arm casually going around Karé’s shoulders to balance herself. Finn saw Karé move her arm around Jess’s waist even as Poe spoke.

“You. Your girlfriend was just telling us all about how you could never win an eating competition against my little sister.”

“Through no fault of your own,” Karé said, angling her face upwards to look at Jess. “Ria’s just natural at it.”

“She is,” Jess agreed. “Ms Bey told us that if she didn’t know better, she’d think Ria was part python. You should be proud, Poe.”

The conversation went on like that; Finn had a feeling that as obscure as it seemed, it was not the first time the subject had been discussed. He put in a few remarks here and there, but mostly he focused on exchanging amused looks with Rey when the banter got particularly bizarre.

Something prompted Poe to suggest they all go out again, and somehow he ended up at one of the outside tables sitting next to Rey and opposite Mr Dameron and Ms Organa.

“It’s been great,” he said as Mr Dameron asked him and Rey about how their time working for Ms Organa was going.

Rey nodded vigorously. “I’ve really enjoyed it, too.”

Ms Organa laughed. “I don’t know what you expected to hear, Kes, with me sitting right here. I don’t hire fools.”

“But you do like forthright people,” Poe said, appearing at the end of the table. “You wouldn’t fire Finn or Rey even if they told Dad that the espresso machine still breaks down every other week.”

Finn bit the inside of his mouth to hide his smile. Poe was right, and the machine was really annoying to work around. But considering how amazing and employer Ms Organa was otherwise, it wouldn’t have ever occurred to him to bring that up first.

“I was mostly referring to my co-workers,” he said diplomatically before Ms Organa or Mr Dameron could react.

Mr Dameron laughed. The Damerons’ neighbours on the other side of the street probably heard it too.

“Don’t even try to answer that, Poe,” he said when he stopped. “You’ll only end up arguing against yourself.”

“Han said he’d look at that machine before he left,” Ms Organa muttered darkly. “You could have said something.”

“It’s nice to curse under your breath at it every once in a while.” Poe grinned. “Stops us from doing it at customers.”

“He’s not wrong,” Rey said under her breath as Mr Dameron laughed. Finn might have been the only one to hear it.

\---

It was getting late. Rey didn’t mind; she was getting a ride back home by car and she had the closing shift the following day at work. Finn didn’t have work the following day at all, but Mr Hux (she said the name inside her head as disparagingly as she could; it was a ridiculous name for a person to have) apparently had a curfew for Finn.

The concept had always been odd to Rey. Most of her classmates seemed to have one as well, but...

Finn wasn’t going to miss his on account of her. That would be much easier for her to engineer if she’d known when his curfew was, but she was determined anyway. Then again, Finn was what most adults called ‘a good kid’; he would probably take care of it himself.

She was being ridiculous. It helped a little with the ugly feeling of helplessness she felt at the thought of both of them having to leave the Damerons’ backyard.

“Earth to Rey.”

She blinked at Poe. “What?”

“You looked like your thoughts were somewhere galaxies away from here.”

Poe nodded towards Finn and John who, the last time Rey had checked, had been talking about physics. Or something. The theoretical kind of stuff that she’d never had the time for but which apparently turned both of them into giant nerds.

It was sweet. Finn’s smile was rarely that careless in the best of ways. She didn’t want to interrupt them.

“I was just thinking,” she said. “It’s a really fun party.”

“I’m glad to hear that.” Poe smiled back at her, every bit the happy birthday boy with his casual posture and slightly mussed hair and his amazing family. For a fraction of a second, Rey wanted to hate him but couldn’t. “I know some people would think it’s the lamest birthday party ever-“

“Some people are idiots.”

She only realised how forcefully she’d said it when she heard it in her own ears. But Poe didn’t seem to think it odd, or if he did, he didn’t show it.

To their left, Jess and Karé laughed loudly at something Ria was saying. It wasn’t a condescending laugh, not like Rey had used to thinking soon-to-be high school seniors would laugh at a little kid.

“I know right,” Poe said, nodding towards them. “Nothing says a party like unleashing your family on your unsuspecting friends with all of their worst jokes and stories.”

He didn’t mean it disparagingly. If he had, he probably would have put in at least the slightest amount of effort to imply that.

“Excuse you,” John said; at some point, he and Finn had fallen silent and apparently started listening. “Your mum’s anecdotes are the best and you know it.”

“Dad would be hurt that you don’t praise his jokes as much,” Poe said, and although neither one seemed to be deliberately excluding Rey and Finn from the conversation, Rey suddenly had a distinct feeling that they were referencing an earlier discussion that she and Finn weren’t privy to. “He works really hard to maintain that level of ridiculous.”

“I know.” John grinned. “He’s trained his son very well in that art.”

Poe made pretensions at protesting, but Finn and Rey were all too willing to testify against him by reminding him about certain workplace behaviour, and anyway Poe seemed to lack the genuine affront that would have been required for him to be convincing.

“You’re one to talk,” he eventually said, changing tactics. “Or need I remind everyone about that time your mum spent two hours showing me your baby pictures with commentary?”

John looked like his cheeks were probably burning, but he couldn’t help his genuine smile. “I know. She’s great.”

Poe nodded solemnly. “She definitely is. Remember when my parents invited you both over for dinner and-”

Rey didn’t hear the details of the story; she was far too preoccupied smiling pleasantly and not crying, although she couldn’t even explain to herself why she suddenly had the urge to just curl up and let it go.

She almost startled when she felt a hand grasp her own. Finn’s eyes briefly met hers and for a second, his smile was small and expressive before turning to the smile he used with customers. Rey swallowed and squeezed his hand back.

He didn’t let go even once Poe and John had finished praising the virtues of each other’s parents and the discussion moved on to other topics. Neither did she.

\---

Finn definitely didn’t want to leave yet, but he didn’t want to miss his curfew and he’d promised to drive Rey home before that.

”Thank you for inviting us,” he told Poe, Rey nodding vigorously next to him.

”Thanks for coming,” Poe said. ”It was great to hang out without having to wear an apron.”

”You should drop by to buy ice cream more often.” Jess smiled at them both. ”I never see you otherwise.”

”Or you could come and buy a Hair Bun,” Rey said.

Jess laughed. ”I just might.”

They said their goodbyes, got in the car and waved back at Poe, Jess and the others as they drove away.

They didn’t speak much, just listening to the radio in companionable silence. Finn couldn’t help stealing glances at Rey, who didn’t seem to notice, mostly looking at her hands in her lap.

”You can stop here,” she said as they turned to the small road that would lead to her house. ”It’s almost faster by foot, I can walk.”

Finn bit his lip. It wasn’t a very long distance, and the road wasn’t nearly as bad as Rey made it sound like if he remembered the afternoon at all correctly, but- He was pretty sure Rey didn’t actually mean exactly what she said.

He turned the car around on a wider stretch of the road and parked it.

”I had so much fun today,” Rey said. ”Thanks for giving me a ride.”

”No problem.” Finn bit his lip, his gaze meeting Rey’s, and the question just asked itself. ”Rey, are you okay?”

For a second, Rey looked like she was going to make a joke of it, but then her face turned more open and she looked far less self-assured than she usually did. Finn wanted to reach out to hug her, but their positions would have made it awkward.

“Are you?”

The question surprised him and left him speechless, and for a good long while, they just looked at each other. He didn’t know what Rey saw in his expression, but hers spoke volumes. Neither one of them answered the question.

Finally, Rey glanced away at the dashboard.

“I should go,” she said. “I wouldn’t want you to get home too late because of me.”

“Are you sure you’re okay walking the rest of the way?”

Rey managed a grin, but it was hollower than her usual. “I’ll be fine. There’s nothing out there that I couldn’t beat in a fight.”

Her words were not particularly reassuring, but then again Finn doubted there was anything she could say that would truly reassure him right then.

“I’ll see you at work,” he said.

He watched as Rey started walking along the road and finally forced himself to look away and start driving home.

\---

He made it inside with about five minutes to spare. Mr Hux was in the living room, seemingly engrossed in the previous day’s newspaper.

As Finn entered the room, he folded the newspaper away, fixing his eyes squarely on Finn. “How was the party?”

Finn shifted his weight from one foot to another.

“It was very nice. We all had fun.”

Mr Hux didn’t blink. “The purpose of a work event is not to have fun.”

Biting back a comment that made its way to his tongue unbidden, Finn glanced away first.

“I trust you’re not going to make a habit of coming home this late.”

“No, Mr Hux.”

“Good. Go to bed.”

As he made it up the stairs into his room, Finn couldn’t help thinking that he understood Rey’s eagerness to walk home very well. If the roles had been reversed, he wouldn’t have wanted her to have to be there for that either.


	9. A Mr Organa-Solo

Rey was on a good mood; the sun was shining, she had an afternoon at the café ahead of her and she’d had one of the muffins Ms Organa had given her a few days ago at the end of her shift before she left home. It felt like there was nothing that could ruin her day.

That was, until she pushed the door open and noticed the blatant relief on Finn’s face as he saw her.

“Hey,” she said carefully. “How are you?”

“I’m fine.” Finn glanced towards the door that led to the back of the shop. “How are you?”

Rey moved closer, her heart beating faster. They didn’t talk about this, not in so many words, but if Finn-

“You don’t look fine.”

Finn must have realised what she was implying, and to her immense relief, gave her a genuine smile that, however, quickly turned to something else when they heard a low thud as if someone had dropped something at the back, followed by a litany of words too distant for Rey to hear but which definitely had to be cursing.

“Mr Organa-Solo is back in town,” Finn said, the smile returning although not completely overshadowing his concerned look.

As if summoned, a man with grey hair and the most displeased look Rey had ever seen in the café stuck his head into the customer area.

“Someone’s reorganised the kitchen,” he said like an accusation.

Finn gave Rey a look that very clearly said, ‘See, that’s what I meant’, before turning to Mr Organa-Solo.

“Ms Organa said they were overflowing.”

Rey remembered that day. Ms Organa had also predicted that her husband would not like the change, but she’d also announced that he could deal with it.

“Of course,” Mr Organa-Solo muttered. “Well, I need help putting it all back, I have no idea where they’re supposed to go now. Your girlfriend can wait five minutes.”

Rey bit the inside of her cheek to stop herself from laughing. Whatever ideas she had had about Mr Organa-Solo based on hearsay, he lived up to them in his gruffness.

“Rey works here too,” Finn said. “She has closing shift today, Ms Organa mentioned that before she left.”

Mr Organa-Solo didn’t look very contrite as he turned to Rey. “Oh, well, you’ll do then.”

His head withdrew from the doorway.

“So,” Rey bit her lip, hoping she’d read the situation correctly, “have you had a nice morning?”

Finn groaned very quietly.

“I don’t think he likes me,” he whispered. “But then again he doesn’t seem to like anyone, so I don’t really feel like it’s my fault.”

“Definitely not,” she said. “I better go before I make an even worse impression on him.”

Finn gave her a thumbs-up before she made herself move towards the door and away from the counter.

\---

Rey had never been so glad to be called to the till to help with an inexplicable afternoon rush.

“I don’t think he likes me either,” she told Finn as he came to make a cup of espresso while she was frantically searching for more napkins. “I asked him if he could put some stuff on the top shelf and he told me he wasn’t a ladder.”

Finn nodded sympathetically. “Ms Organa said to tell you she’d be back at some point before it’s time to close.”

It wasn’t a great comfort, but Rey would take it.

The rush evaporated almost as quickly as it had arrived, and Rey was relieved to find out that while she’d been helping Finn, Mr Organa-Solo had decided to just stuff the rest of the things into the washing machine and no longer needed her help organising it.

Which left her and Finn equally devoid of pressing things to do, which meant they could engage in Rey’s favourite work activity: pretending to clean while talking.

“I can see why he goes off to fish for a month every summer,” Rey said. “He doesn’t strike me as the type to enjoy customer service, and summer’s supposed to be the busiest time of the year.”

Finn nodded. “I don’t quite understand him and Ms Organa as a couple anyway.”

“Really?” Rey crouched down to wipe off a coffee stain from the floor. “Did something happen while she was here in the morning?”

“No, not really, it was just-“ Finn stopped reorganising the packets of sugar cubes and Splenda for a moment. “It just kind of seemed like they were arguing a little all the time. Aren’t marriages supposed to be more, I don’t know, amicable?”

Rey shrugged her shoulders as well as she could while wiping cupboard doors. “I wouldn’t know.”

Finn let out a vague sound which Rey took to mean he didn’t either.

“Anyway,” he said after a moment, “they’ve been together for ages so I guess it works for them.”

“Guess so.” She stood up and made her way to the sink. “I’m not sure I’d want that, though.”

“Me neither.”

Their cleaning was interrupted by Ms Kanata, who came in for her afternoon coffee.

“There you go,” Finn said as he offered her her change. “That’s-“

A low thump from the back, followed by some choice curse words, interrupted him mid-sentence.

“Ah,” Ms Kanata said, taking her change. “I take it Han’s back in town.”

\---

Finn didn’t know if Ms Kanata spoke loudly on purpose to attract Mr Organa-Solo’s attention, but as if on command, Mr Organa-Solo emerged from the kitchen, rubbing at his head in a way that probably went some way towards explaining the thump.

“Hi, Maz,” he said with surprising sheepishness.

“Han!” Maz smiled even as she picked up her cup of coffee and her pastry. “Thought I heard you. How’s my boyfriend doing?”

Finn could have sworn Mr Organa-Solo blushed.

“Chewie’s fine.”

Mr Organa-Solo looked like he thought Ms Kanata’s bright smile might burn him on the spot. Finn’s gaze found Rey’s; he didn’t remember when he’d last seen her look so gleeful.

Seeing Mr Organa-Solo squirm was definitely its own type of reward.

“What did you do to him?” Rey asked as soon as Mr Organa-Solo had gone back to the kitchen, voicing exactly the thought that was vexing Finn’s mind.

“Nothing.” Ms Kanata smiled at the two of them. Finn couldn’t detect any difference in that smile and the one she’d given to Mr Organa-Solo, and to him it just looked like a friendly smile of an elderly lady. “He isn’t nearly as old and unaffected as he pretends to be, take it from someone who knows.”

Ms Kanata withdrew to a table with her coffee, and Mr Organa-Solo didn’t come out of the kitchen until she’d left, arriving just in time to sell a few coffees to go to a group of teenagers.

“We need to come back here once school’s started,” Rey said once both Mr Organa-Solo and the teenagers had left. “I need to see how he handles a rush hour.”

Finn laughed. “Let’s do that.”

The silence that fell was companionable, but the longer it went on, the more something Rey had said nagged away at the back of Finn’s head until he had to bring it up just to shut his own mind up.

“School _is_ starting up pretty soon.”

Rey groaned. “I know.”

“Not excited?”

Rey bit her lip as if considering it. “I mean, in a way I guess. I’ve heard nice things about D’Qar, and Poe will be there, and Jess and the others. But you won’t, and it isn’t like I haven’t been seeing them a lot here anyway. It’ll definitely be better than Jakku but it still won’t be as good as working here, so it’s hard to get properly excited about it.”

“I’m a little afraid,” Finn confessed, “that you’ll all just fall out of touch with me since you’ll all be in the same school and I won’t.”

Rey stared at him for an unnervingly long time and blinked.

“Why?” she eventually asked.

Finn squared his shoulders, trying not to look as defensive as he felt. “First Order is on the other side of town from D’Qar,” he said. “And if we don’t work together anymore-“

“Then we’ll hang out somewhere else.” Rey’s expression grew softer, and she bridged the gap between them to take Finn’s hand in hers. It would have been difficult not to smile at that, and Finn didn’t try very hard. “You’re very hard to forget, Finn.”

It wasn’t necessarily a positive statement, but Rey’s expression told him everything that was necessary to interpret it.

“Really?”

Rey smiled back at him and squeezed his hand. “Definitely.”

He didn’t know how long they just stood there smiling at each other. It must have been more than just a few seconds, because-

“Don’t let me interrupt or anything.”

His cheeks felt like they were on fire, and he dropped Rey’s hand instinctually.

Mr Organa-Solo moved from the doorway to the room, starting to rummage through one of the drawers behind the counter. Finn glanced at Rey, who was blushing as well, but also managed a small smile.

Apparently not finding what he’d been searching, Mr Organa-Solo slammed the drawer shut and checked his watch.

“Isn’t it time for you to head home now?”

Finn glanced at his own watch. “In ten minutes, sir.”

“You can leave already if you want. Take a bun, too. You as well.” He nodded towards Rey. “Take a ten-minute break, I’ll stay here. I bet no one’s going to come in anyway.”

Finn saw his own surprise reflected on Rey’s face, but they didn’t waste time doing as they’d been told to.

“Maybe he hit his head harder than it sounded,” Rey suggested once they were standing outside by the backdoor. The smell of rubbish made it a less than ideal place to indulge in pastries, but on the bright side, Mr Organa-Solo could not accidentally or intentionally eavesdrop on them as easily, so it all balanced out. “Because that was weird.”

Finn swallowed the piece of bun in his mouth before speaking. “Those plastic ice cream containers Ms Organa keeps on the top shelf could definitely knock you out.”

Rey gave him an exasperated look and bumped her shoulder against his, but she was laughing as much as Finn so it was obvious she’d understood his intentions.

“Any tips on dealing with him one on one?” she asked once their giggles had finally died down.

“I think he can smell fear,” Finn said, prompting another bump against his shoulder and another fit of laughter.

When Rey stole a glance at his watch and said she should probably go back to work, Finn wanted nothing more than to stick around at the café, for reasons that probably had very little to do with saving Rey the need to face Mr Organa-Solo alone. But Mr Hux had told him to come straight home so he simply wished Rey a good remainder of her shift.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she responded, “unless I die tonight, in which case Poe can have my apron and you can cash in that free ice cream Jess owes me.”

“I think the apron is strictly speaking Ms Organa’s.”

“Not if I die in it,” Rey muttered darkly, but her gloomy expression didn’t last long in the face of Finn’s laughter.

“See you tomorrow,” Finn said as he began walking towards his car and Rey opened the door to go back inside. “Please don’t die, we’d miss you.”

The last thing he heard before the door slammed shut was Rey’s laughter, bright and happy and because of him.

Finn grinned all the way to his car, where his search for his car keys was interrupted by a particularly forceful sneeze.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It does occur to me that this is quite possibly not the best and most sensible of endings to a chapter that will not be immediately followed by another one, but we make do with what our plot outlines require of us.


End file.
